Libel? Nah. Just Democratic Hijinks.

I am a bit flummoxed at Royson James’ notion of democracy. Early on in the 2010 campaign, the Toronto Star columnist spearheaded the derailment of then councillor Adam Giambrone’s mayoral bid, outraged over some unsavoury “personal issues”, let’s call them, that had surfaced. Here’s what Mr. James wrote in February of 2010:

Mayoral candidate Adam Giambrone can be gay if he wants to, or bisexual. This is Toronto.

Giambrone the playboy can have a 19-year-old girlfriend on the side, a common practice among the political elite of the day.

Giambrone the TTC chair can use the couch in his city hall office to bed Kristen Lucas late at night when he should have been using the office to solve customer-relations problems at the TTC.

…

And when caught with his pants on the ground, the man with the clean-cut, fresh, youthful image can admit only to having an “inappropriate” text message relationship with the girlfriend, as if it amounted to mere digital sex, a peccadillo.

But the 32-year-old city councillor can’t do all that and expect Torontonians to embrace him as their mayor.

Yet 2 ½ years on with the man the city did ultimately embrace as its mayor, Rob Ford, in court on the stand, defending himself against libel charges for things he said during the 2010 campaign and Mr. James simply shrugs. “We value our democracy,” he wrote yesterday. “Elections are the purest expression of our freedoms. When candidates put themselves up for public office we want to give them the greatest latitude possible to debate issues, to raise questions, to rail at the moon, to be as outrageous or as thoughtful as possible.”

Apparently for Royson James, a strong democracy needs to be able to withstand undermining attacks upon it by unsubstantiated innuendo, questionable claims and, quite possibly, libellous slurs but cannot cope with a politician’s personal transgression and the lies and hypocrisy that invariably follow any public outing. Adam Giambrone was unfit to hold the office of mayor. Rob Ford was just expressing his democratic rights and freedom.

No one is arguing that Rob Ford did not have the right to say the things he said during the Toronto Sun editorial board meeting. At issue now is facing the consequences for the words he spoke. You’d think that would have James more up in arms than he seems to be.

The outrageous railing at the moon the Fords engaged in with the Sun about in camera meetings, backroom sole-source deals, corruption and skulduggery was just par for the course of the complete fiction their whole platform thrived on. Unchecked, such invention became fact. The Ford administration rode into power on a huge polluted wave of misinformation and dubious rhetorical slogans.

But at least we don’t have a philanderer sitting in the mayor’s chair. I mean, one who cheats on his partner not the entire city with his little football coaching on the side.

Amazingly, given all that’s happened during Mayor Ford’s tenure, James remains blithely oh-well-what-are-you-gonna-do about politicians who engage in debatable discourse that confounds reality. “The thinking is that our community can withstand the rhetorical excess of misguided or over-exuberant candidates. In the end, a thoughtful and clear-thinking electorate will sift through the noise and mess and find a reasonable representative to lead them.”

Really, Royson?! Really!? To quote Stephen Colbert: How is the weather up your own ass?

Goaded by ‘the rhetorical excess of misguided or over-exuberant candidates’, enough voters were convinced City Hall was rife with corruption and bloated spending (and whatever other uncorroborated crimes against taxpayers Rob Ford tossed in for good measure) that we now are in the grips of a fantasy league mayor and his collection of delusional followers. In the article, James claims then Ford campaign spokes person, Adrienne Batra practically dared George Foulidis to challenge the accusations in court “and watch all the stuff come out in public.” The matter is now in court and, so far, no ‘stuff’ has come out in public.

Bullshit built on bullshit can only result in more bullshit.

Whether or not Mayor Ford is found libel in what he said about the process of awarding a contract in the Tuggs deal is irrelevant at this point. What should be clear, especially to long time municipal watchers like Royson James, is that the mayor’s iffy relationship to the truth, on almost every civic matter he expounds on, serves neither democracy nor the welfare of this city. In fact, it’s been nothing but a detriment. Shame on Royson James’ nonchalance in the face of that.

— unimpressedly submitted by Cityslikr